“When the States hacks”*

When the state “hacks” * is an analysis of the legitimacy of the use of hacking tools in Colombia, written by Juan Diego Castaneda of Karisma Foundation.

Internet is being affected by all kinds of control measures that determine a what point is a media free, open and secure. States have been acquiring technological capabilities to surreptitiously access electronic devices and get information from them, and even turn on cameras and microphones and record what they see, meaning, to hack them with purposes ranging from criminal investigation to the suppression dissent, through the collection of intelligence information. States and privates use of these tools suppose a problem for the exercise of human rights because it implies a complete intrusion into the intimate life of the target person and therefore can affect, among others, the right to freedom of expression. While these tools have presence not only in Colombia but also in several Latin American countries, there has been a debate about its legitimacy and on the challenges that these activities pose to the legal frameworks of human rights in our countries.

Karisma Foundation has published an info graph (Spanish) as well as it’s analysis of Remote Control tools as a contribution to this public discussion. If this topic is of concern to you, please share these documents with General Palomino (@GeneralPalomino), and with the members of the Intelligence Law Commission -the only body enabled to exert some control over this activity– (@jaimeduranbar @jimmychamorro @PaolaHolguin @carlosfgalan @MIgueBarretoC @OPedroorjuela @Tatacabello) by using hashtag #ElTalHackeoSíExiste so that in 2016 this debate takes place and our rights to privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are protected.

*”Hacking” is an expression that identifies an ethic of providing access to technology to empower people, and was later understood as the activity of finding vulnerabilities in information systems, essentially with the goal of reporting them and repairing them. Finally, it began to be used in the sense of seeking vulnerabilities in information systems in order to exploit them illegally. For Karisma, the correct expression when one “hacks” to cause harm is to “crack”, so using the expression “hacking” in this sense is incorrect. However this is the popularized use. For ease of understanding, we have decided to use the term “hacking” to mean “cracking” in this document, although we are aware that this is only one of the meanings of this word.